It was by browsing photo-sharing site Flickr that one of Stevick's colleagues found a photo of this particular humpback, taken by a Norwegian tourist from a whale-watching vessel off the coast of Madagascar in 2001.

A decade ago local sightings of humpbacks bemused experts like Robert because standard wisdom had it that these whales were migratory, shuttling annually between polar waters to feed and warmer tropical waters to breed.

Japan's initial targeting of humpbacks, which have not been hunted since a moratorium on the species was introduced in the mid-1960s, is part of that country's long-standing campaign, along with Norway and Iceland, to restore large-scale commercial whaling.

The protest, coordinated by IFAW, was attended by two mayors from the eastern suburb councils of Waverly and Randwick and the mayors launched a program in which the councils will ''adopt'' a humpback whale.

Each of the eight aircraft in Aloha's fleet of Next Generation Boeing 737-700 aircraft is named for a Polynesian navigator, and Aloha said the name Koholalele recognizes the humpback whale as one of the great navigators of the ocean.

Many whale species including blue, fin, right, sperm and humpback whales were hunted to the verge of extinction during the 19th and 20th centuries, and Norway and Japan played central roles in the destruction of Antarctica's once-bountiful whale populations.

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